Rants tag

Rants, ruminations, and rambling remarks from my mad, muddled, meandering mind.

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Blaugust the 15th: Nexus

Fooled, ya! This is not a Wildstar post.

It's been a long day. I've been having trouble with my Asus Padfone X almost since I first got it almost a year ago. I don't want to go into detail here, but it came to the point where I felt I needed to replace it. Naturally, it was really busy at the cellular store, but after much discussion with Scooter, I picked up the Android Nexus 6 by Motorola.

A key feature of the Padfone was that the phone docked on the back of a tablet interface, which I thought would be an ideal device, giving me the benefits of both a phone and a tablet. However, I ended up hardly ever using the tablet interface, and the phone itself was smaller than my previous phone, a Samsung Galaxy S3. The Nexus 6 has a nice big 6-inch screen, just shy of being classified as an actual tablet.

As you may be aware, the Nexus line represents "pure" Android, unadulterated by manufacturer overlays. This could be a good thing, but it may also take some getting used to. I haven't used it enough for this to be much of a review, but maybe I will post one before the end of the month.
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If you're interested in joining the madness (Vloggers are welcome, too!), Belghast has a set of rules for qualifying for any prizes at the end. Your second stop should be the Blaugust Nook, where Bel is keeping track of everything and community members are sharing encouragement and ideas.
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6 comments:

  1. I own a Nexus 5 (LG manufactured), and the stripped-down nature of the phone, to me, feels better than the others for a few reasons. The fact that there's no bloatware is great, nothing taking up space that I don't want, and no need to root the phone to remove things I don't want. And I never have to worry about something running in the background unless I downloaded it myself, which also makes it easier to track problems down (one caveat in a moment).

    The Android Update policy for Nexus devices is a bit of a double edged sword. On the one hand you will almost always be able to run the most up to date version of the operating system, making it more secure and prolonging the life of the device. The bad aspect is that in some ways you can be a beta tester. The Android 5.0 update killed my battery, so much so that even idling it would drain the battery almost completely over a 12 hour period from full. It was fixed relatively quickly (5.0.1 to be exact) and I haven't seen anything like it since, but do be warned, there may be bugs, and you might be the first to find them if you take updates the day they come out.

    All in all though, a good choice. I bet you'll be happy with it.

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    1. Thanks for the warning on being an accidental beta tester. I'm still getting situated, finding the apps that I really did use often and installing only them, etc.I have a friend who has gotten several Nexus phones, and also loves the stripped down, no bloat, aspect of the OS. Thanks for your comments. :)

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  2. I'm due an upgrade in 2 months and have been looking at the Nexus 6 moving from my HTC One.
    The HTC Sense software isn't as tailored as those I've seen on the Samsung brands, but I get frustrated at the delay in Patches and some of the assumptions it tends to make.

    I look forward to seeing how you get on with it.

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    1. Well, I'll be sure then do a write-up in the next week or so.

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  3. I am in the market too, but I am waiting to see how the new Moto X Pure, Samsung Note 5, and rumored Nexus 6 sequel from Huawei pan out. I'd love to know your opinion on a phone of this size though. I was thinking it'd be a better alternative to buying a small tablet that I'd rarely use.

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    1. That's my thought, as well. I loved my at-the-time relatively large Galaxy S3, and considered a phablet like the Note before deciding on the Padfone. I do like the size of the Nexus 6. It's about the same size as the Note 4, but a little wider.

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